Media streaming is becoming an increasingly popular way of delivering television, movies and other media content to viewers. Media streams are typically point-to-point transmissions of digitized content that can be sent over the Internet or a similar network. Media streaming is often used to facilitate video-on-demand (VOD) services, remote storage digital video recorder (RSDVR) services, Internet Protocol television (IPTV) services, placeshifted media viewing, and/or any number of other convenient services. Generally, the media stream is played back for the viewer in real time as the stream continues to be delivered to the player.
Often, media content is encoded into multiple sets of “streamlets” or other smaller segment files that can be individually requested and adaptively delivered to a particular client device. As changes in network bandwidth or other factors occur, the client device is able to react to the changes by requesting future segments that are encoded with different parameters (e.g., a higher or lower bit rate). Several examples of adaptive streaming systems, devices and techniques are described in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2008/0195743, which is incorporated herein by reference.
Adaptive media streaming typically relies upon the media player client to control much of the streaming process. That is, the media player client, rather than the server, typically determines the next segment of the stream that will be requested and delivered to the player. While this player-centric approach provides adaptability to the particular conditions experienced by the player, the client is often limited in that it only has a limited amount of information that can be used to determine which segment should be requested next. If network congestion, server overload, or other system-wide issues are occurring, the client device itself is typically not aware of these issues until they directly impact the stream of segments provided to that particular client device.
It is therefore desirable to create systems, devices, and methods that allow the client device to better control the adaptive streaming process and/or to respond to issues that may be beyond the immediate visibility of the client device. These and other desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background section.